For Now
by Jesabelle
Summary: I believe that everyone who bullies people like Draco does has to be unhappy in some way. This fic reflects the reasons that I believe Draco to be unhappy, and a twist to his view of Harry Potter.


iDisclaimer: Everything belongs to JK Rowling, I am in total debt to her for providing me with hours of writing and reading pleasure. /i  
  
Draco shrugged off his robes, sat on his bedroom floor and leaned against his bed, closing his eyes for a few minutes. He allowed his body to draw the contrast between the freezing cold outside and the blanket of warmth he was wrapped in now, and shuddered.  
  
His parents were out. He didn't know where, or particularly care, either. He was alone. He needn't fear footsteps coming up the stairs or listen to their violent arguments. He needn't sit through another one of his fathers drunken lectures, or have his face come so close to his own as he shouted that he could smell the foul stench of alcohol on his breath.  
  
At least, not for now.  
  
He snorted slightly to himself, thinking how pathetic it was that, at seventeen, he still feared his father's mere presence.  
  
Draco slowly curled and uncurled his numb, red fingers, encouraging the feeling in them to return. Tugging off his boots and scarf, he crossed his legs, and took the small, silver box he had come to treasure off his nightstand, grasping it tightly in his shaking fist.  
  
The moment his hand touched the cool metal he drew in a sharp breath and he felt the thoughts he tried so desperately to block out rise to his conscious. He felt the familiar stinging in the back of his eyes.  
  
These were the thoughts that paved the paths to his darkest moments, where everything looked bleak and hopeless, where he wanted to ram the stanley- knife blade the silver box contained deep into his wrist, and watch the life trickle out of him in its crimson form.  
  
However, he knew that he couldn't possibly let his father have that satisfaction. He would never allow himself to be overtaken by that man.  
  
Lucius Malfoy was the cause of the destruction of Draco's soul. He felt like a no-one, years of verbal and physical abuse had seen to that. When Draco was at home, away from Hogwarts, he was a completely different person. Around his fellow pupils he was Draco Malfoy, superior to every other being. When he got home, however, he was Draco Malfoy, self- destructor.  
  
He loved few people in his life. His heart held rivers of hatred, however - for his father, and all his dark Wizarding friends, for his ridiculous, pathetic Headmaster, and all the other teachers that favoured his most passionate victim of hate - Harry Potter.  
  
No one would ever understand how overwhelming and passionate his hatred was for Harry. And it was for one, main reason - Harry's parents.  
  
Although James and Lily Potter were dead, it didn't erase their mark of love which radiated from Harry's being, drawing bitter envy from Draco's. Harry Potter had survived the Death Curse from the most evil and powerful sorcerer of the time because of his mothers love. Eleven years later, that love still coursed through his veins to the extent that the boy had been able to crumble Voldemort to nothing but a spirit with his mere touch.  
  
It made Draco sick. He did realise, deep down, that it was jealousy above anything that he felt for Potter. He couldn't begin to imagine how wonderful it must be to know that your parents loved you so much that they would gladly die for you.  
  
With this thought in mind, he lifted the lid of the box with trembling fingers. His heart quickened pace, and a surge of hot adrenaline raced through his body. Slowly and carefully he extracted the deadly sharp blade, and ran his finger gently down the steel surface, shivering convulsively. Goosepimples rose all over his skin as he pressed the blade lighting against the top of his arm, over his shirt. He made sweeping movements up and down his arm, pressing ever so lightly, just toying with the blade, mustering up his courage.  
  
Eventually he set the blade down, balanced on his knee, and rolled up his sleeve. Taking a deep breath in, he picked up the blade again. He pressed it against his arm once more, and felt the muscles tense voluntarily. Slowly, he pushed it harder against his flesh until he felt it break the skin's surface. He ran the blade firmly along his arm, and was enveloped in delicious pain. He withdrew and watched the wound turn red and the warm blood ooze from the cut. He breathed out exuberantly and smiled slightly at the feeling of relief his past-time bestowed upon him. He continued to watch the blood, and observe the ugly scars the whole of his arm bore. Some were protruding slightly, and purple - those were the ones that were years old. The more recent ones were still a reddish pink colour. They lay on every inch of skin, some in morbid criss cross patterns, some in thick, jagged lines.  
  
The scar that stood out the most went half the length of his upper arm, and was in the shape of a lightening bolt. His lips twisted into a wry smile at the sight of that scar. He laughed softly to himself.  
  
When he pain dulled to an inconsistent throb, Draco opened the lighting bold. He dug the blade deeper than ever before and his eyes watered with excruciating pain, yet he continued. His ears were ringing as he struggled to follow the shape and his breath can in short gasps. Blood poured from the wound this time; a steady river of red, it dripped from his arm steadily into his lap. He grasped the cut and shut his eyes tightly, rocking. He felt dizzy and nauseous, and yet so satisfied. The pain was pleasurable. It was the perfect escapism - when pain was this bad it was hard to think about anything else.  
  
He withdrew his hand from the wound, and grabbed a handful of tissues. Desperately moping up the blood from his arm, he felt a sudden rise of panic. He couldn't help but wonder if he had cut too deep this time. It had never burnt this much before, never had the blood poured so quickly.  
  
A sudden click from the door handle made Draco's head snap up quickly. The blood drained from his already pale face when he saw the dark, shadowy figure that stood in the doorway.  
  
Lucius.  
  
Neither Draco or his father spoke for a few minutes, Draco was trembling to his core and his body was frozen. He was physically unable to move for fear. All that could be heard was his heavy breathing and a soft 'pat' noise where the blood dripped off his arm.  
  
"What," his father spat, "do you think you are doing?"  
  
Draco opened his mouth to speak but failed. He had kept his morbid pastime a secret from everyone in the world up until now - even on the hottest summers days he'd suffered on in long sleeved tops.  
  
"I will NOT allow MY SON to carry on like this!" Lucius' eyes were filled with a passionate hatred as he stepped into the room. The light gathered on Lucius' figure, emphasising his sunken eyes set in dark circles. They looked bloodshot and red - a sure sign he had been drinking too much.  
  
Again.  
  
His black cloak veiled his hunched body and his long white hair looked waxy and stringy.  
  
His father was a mess. These last few years had not treated him well, and it showed in his appearance. Draco's eyes fixated on the pathetic excuse for a father in front of him. He answered -  
  
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"  
  
His voice came out in a harsh whisper, but nevertheless it drew an astonished and outraged look from Lucius as a red flush began creeping up his neck.  
  
"Don't you DARE answer me back!" Lucius shouted, his face now crimson, with the vein on his forehead visibly pulsating.  
  
Draco said nothing, but kept his venomous stare concentrated on his father. He had forgotten about the pain in his arm, he simply held it cradled in his lap. He saw Lucius' eyes dart down to his arm again. He began walking towards Draco, and he saw the shape of the wound register in his fathers mind - saw his eyes widen and his mouth slightly drop.  
  
"Why...why would you want to be like that...that FILTH?" Lucius stammered. "You IDIOT, Draco!"  
  
He raised a clenched fist and brought it down heavily on Draco's cheek bone. Blackness veiled his vision, and bells rung in his head. He felt his cheek stinging where Lucius' thick ring had broken his skin. He struggled to his feet, blindly clawing his way to his father's throat. But Lucius was bigger and stronger than Draco, and he batted his son's arms away with an evil laugh.  
  
"You are nothing but a silly little boy. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that you were going to be a disappointment. But never did I once dream that you would stoop so low as to idolise that revolting Potter! Him and his father were disgusting, good for nothing -"  
  
"NO THEY WERE NOT!" Draco screamed. "James Potter died for his FAMILY, he was an honourable man, and Harry Potter has selflessly fought Voldemort SO many times to try and save white magic! Harry Potter is the bravest, most decent human being I have ever met! And when you compare his father to the state I've got, it's simply laughable - YOU are filth, NOT THEM!"  
  
He gasped for breath once he'd finished his outburst. Tears were pouring down his cheeks, mixing with the blood from his split cheek. He was stunned that the words had come out of his mouth so automatically - he hadn't even realised he held that view of Harry - or James.  
  
Draco's entire body tensed as fury blazed in Lucius' eyes.  
  
"You repulse me," Lucius spat, and hit Draco hard across the head with the back of his hand. The blow sent Draco reeling across the room and he fell heavily on his desk. Winded, he gasped and struggled to regain his breath.  
  
"Not as much as you repulse me," he said in a staggered, barely audible whisper. "You filthy Death Eater."  
  
This earned his a blow to the nose, which immediately gushed with blood. Draco cried out in shock, and fell to the floor once more.  
  
"Filthy," Lucius kicked Draco's stomach; "disgusting, good for nothing, bastardised child." Each name was punctuated with another booted kick until Draco could hardly breath. His vision became clouded and blurred as the flow of oxygen to his brain ceased. He squirmed, frantically trying to take in air, as Lucius stood over him laughing.  
  
"Serves you right. I'm warning you Draco, one more step out of line and you'll wish you'd never been born."  
  
As a last dent to Draco's dignity, Lucius spat on his sons' virtually unconscious form.  
  
"You're a pathetic excuse for a Malfoy."  
  
He exited the room, slamming the door behind him. Draco heard his mother scream and shout at Lucius downstairs, and expected she was either pathetically trying to defend her son the way she sometimes did, or was getting the same treatment.  
  
When his breathing eventually settled to rasping intakes of air, he grasped the side of his desk and used it to heave himself up off the floor. He turned to his mirror and winced.  
  
A thin, pale boy stared back at him. The boy had blood smeared all over one cheek and around his mouth, and an ugly looking split lip. Flecks of blood were matted into his white blonde hair. His eyes looked dull, lifeless and hurt. But the thing that stood out most in the boy was the gash on his arm - the shape only just identifiable in the mess of blood that surrounded it.  
  
Draco had come to associate so much anger, pain, pity and fury with that shape. He let out a small laugh, filled with amazement at the irony of the situation, and fell onto his bed. He closed his eyes, his head was spinning and aching, and began, once again, to cry. Soon the sobs wracked his body, and his throat become hoarse and dry. His pillow was wet from the sorrow and red from the pain, and when he had cried all the tears in his body, he drifted into an uneasy, perturbed sleep.  
  
Draco never had understood why his father took such sadistic pleasure in torturing him - and, sometimes, his mother. It had been happening ever since he could remember. Lucius would buy Draco everything he ever wanted in his sober state, but alcohol was an evil enemy of Lucius'. He had never expressed any feelings of love to his son. It was something Draco had gotton used to, although never having heard the words 'I love you' said to him, it hadn't been too hard. You can't miss what was never there.  
  
Sometimes Draco felt like he couldn't get through each day. Sometimes the cutting was enough, until the morning. It was harder when he was at school, although he tended not to do it as much there. There were so many people around him to inflict some of his pain on that it eased the situation somewhat. Draco's main targets tended to be Weasley, and his girlfriend Granger, and Harry Potter. However, from that night onwards he ignored them rather than teased them. It had earned him a few sarcastic comments from Crabbe and Goyle, and even Granger had loudly pointed out one day that he was acting 'unusually civil' in Potions. Draco's outburst that night had made him realise what a decent person Potter actually was. He would never even consider a friendship with the boy - if he was being honest, he was still too much of a goody-two-shoes to be in that league. He had unearthed a respect for Harry that he had never realised; and that was just the way it was. For now. 


End file.
